"Scientist"

Your role

We are looking to fill a new position as Scientist (A2) to support the operationalisation of the Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin (Climate DT) in the Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative of the European Commission. In this role you will play a key role in the evaluation and continuous improvement of the two Climate DT configurations based on the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), IFS-FESOM and IFS-NEMO, working with the partnership implementing the Climate DT, led by CSC-IT Center for Science Ltd in close collaboration with ECMWF. You will contribute to, and coordinate with the Climate DT partnership, on the evaluation, quality control, uncertainty quantification, and documentation of the Climate DT simulations.

You will also act as contact point for external contractors providing climate-related forcing datasets used for the IFS-based configurations. Finally, you will collaborate with modelling teams at ECMWF and across the Climate DT partnership on evaluation, to inform further improvements to the representation of atmosphere, land, ocean at km-scales across weather to climate timescales, supporting future upgrades of DestinE’s DTs and ECMWF operational prediction systems.

About ECMWF

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is a world leader in Numerical Weather Predictions providing high-quality data for weather forecasts and environmental monitoring. As an intergovernmental organisation, we collaborate internationally to serve our members and the wider community with global weather predictions, data and training activities that are critical to contribute to safe and thriving societies.

www.ecmwf.int

About DestinE | Destination Earth

ECMWF is one of the entities entrusted with implementing the European Commission's DestinE initiative, alongside the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), and works closely with over 100 partner institutions across Europe. DestinE delivers high-resolution, configurable digital twins of the Earth system that simulate past, present and plausible future environmental conditions and enable “what-if” scenario exploration.

For more about DestinE and the Climate DT, see https://destine.ecmwf.int and https://destination-earth.eu.

Your responsibilities

• Coordinate with the Climate DT consortium and contribute to evaluation, quality control, and uncertainty quantification of Climate DT simulations, ensuring alignment with C3S and CMIP community standards.
• Contribute to and maintain the documentation of Climate DT configurations, forcings, and simulations, in collaboration with the Climate DT consortium.
• Ensure regular monitoring of operational and experimental Climate DT simulations building on evaluation packages developed by the partnership implementing the Climate DT (AQUA, OBSALL) as well as ECMWF evaluation software.
• Provide feedback on IFS quality at climate timescales to model developers at ECMWF and in the Climate DT consortium and contribute to the evaluation of upgraded model versions.
• Contribute to the evaluation and comparison of physics-based and ML-based climate simulations (e.g. the climate emulator developed in DestinE).
• Oversee the choice of forcings used in Climate DT simulations, ensuring alignment with ECMWF operations, CMIP community standards, Copernicus historical forcings, and manage new contractual activities aiming at developing bespoke scenario forcings for DestinE.
• Foster communication with related projects on evaluation aspects (e.g. EERIE, TERRA DT, and other Horizon Europe projects).
• Participate in project meetings and review project deliverables.

What we are looking for

• Proven analytical and problem-solving skills with a proactive approach to improving models and tools.
• Proven interpersonal and communication skills to enable productive working across the organisation and its partners.
• Able to work independently with minimal supervision while actively contributing to and supporting a collaborative team environment.
• Ability to maintain effective communication and documentation of scientific results.
• Proven capacity to work on a diverse range of tasks to tight deadlines.

Your profile

• Advanced university degree (EQ7 level or above) in a physical, mathematical or environmental science, or equivalent professional experience.
• Experience in the evaluation of climate simulations using coupled Earth system models, including at km-scale resolutions.
• Experience running and analysing coupled Earth-system model simulations on leading high-performance computing (HPC) systems, including handling and analysing large data volumes
• Experience applying and developing diagnostic and evaluation tools, with strong proficiency in Python for large-scale data analysis.
• Experience working in collaborative, multi-partner project environments, including coordination with external partners or contractors and contribution to shared documentation and evaluation workflows.
• Experience evaluating and comparing different modelling approaches, including physics-based and machine-learning-based climate simulations, is an advantage.
• Candidates must be able to work effectively in English.

If you feel that you have the relevant profile and motivation to join us but don't meet precisely all of the skills above, we still encourage you to apply.

Other information

Grade remuneration: The successful candidates will be recruited according to the scales of the Co-ordinated Organisations. Details of salary scales and allowances are available on the ECMWF website at www.ecmwf.int/en/about/jobs.

Starting date: as soon as possible.

Candidates are expected to relocate to the duty station (Bonn, Germany). As a multi-site organisation, ECMWF has adopted a hybrid organisation model which allows flexibility to staff to mix office working and teleworking, including away from the duty station (within the area of our member states and co-operating states).

Interviews by videoconference (MS Team) are expected to take place shortly after the vacancy closing date.

Successful applicants and members of their family forming part of their households will be exempt from immigration restrictions.

Who can apply

Applicants are invited to complete the online application form by clicking on the apply button below.